Ultrasound

ultrasound image on computer

Our team at Randolph Animal Hospital provides pets and their human families with quality veterinary services in a comfortable atmosphere. It is important to our veterinarians and staff to carefully examine each animal and determine the diagnosis of their health issues so we can provide the best care possible. Tools such as diagnostic tests, x-rays, and ultrasounds for pets offer valuable methods for our veterinarians to get a look inside your pet’s body to assess the problem.

Helping Pets

Our active and playful pets quickly find their way into our hearts and through our homes and yards, exploring every nook and cranny within their reach. They may wander into unsafe areas or even have accidents inside your home, sustaining a trauma, or contracting an illness that even a loving and observant pet owner might not detect right away.

Pets depend on us for their everyday needs, care, and their safety. Since they cannot talk to us, we have to be attentive to their behaviors and physical condition and bring them to a trusted veterinarian when they need medical attention. Whether they have ingested a foreign object or developed an abdominal or heart issue, our team at Randolph Animal Hospital is equipped with pet ultrasound technology to investigate your pet’s organs and tissues with no pain and no downtime.

How Ultrasound Works

The ultrasound machine can create an image of the borders or outlines of the tissues and organs using sounds of a higher frequency than people or pets can hear. Using a hand-held probe, the sound waves are delivered harmlessly and painlessly through the patient’s skin into the body by pressing the probe flat on the skin with a layer of gel in-between. The gel is used because ultrasound is less effective through the air than it is through the liquid-filled cavities. Air pockets sometimes deflect the sound waves and misrepresent the image.

cat getting an ultrasound

Inside the body, the waves reflect off of the borders between the different tissues. When they travel back to the machine, the values that are calculated represent the distance between the organs and other layers. For instance, the increase or decrease of layers of fat can be determined for an assessment of an animal’s fitness and nutritional reserves.

The picture on the screen is generated using these distance values between the organs and tissue barriers to form a kind of map of the internal structures. The ability to observe motion in the images is an additional feature of ultrasound that is especially useful to our veterinarians in interpreting what is going on with your pet. A familiar example of this technology is a doctor’s use of ultrasound to listen to and observe a baby’s heartbeat in the womb.

Pet Ultrasound in Randolph, MA

Our team at Randolph Animal Hospital strives to give pets and their families the best care possible, which is why we are equipped with advanced modalities to examine your pet and accurately diagnose the problem. Call us today at 781-963-2298 for more information or to schedule an appointment.